Year 7, Day 153: The last few nights and mornings my pain did a weird reversal. Normally, pain hits me when I lay down at night and then I can’t sleep for hours with painsomnia. That’s when I do my best reading sprees. These past days, when I wake up the bones start to buzz with pain. Weird. Likely won’t last but weird.
PiC and I have been discussing sports for weeks and I think we might be starting to settle in on the idea of competitive swim for JB and swim and beginner baseball in the spring for SmolAc. The time commitment would be almost balanced between the two of them, JB would have practices 3 times a week (and we might be able to carpool with friends), SmolAc would have 1 practice and 1 game each week. The staggered start time is also helpful so that we’re not trying to juggle three sports at the same time. We can ease into it. After the cast is off.
Year 7, Day 154: All I wanted for my birthday was… Well. A lot of things. The replacement of no less than 10 key Republicans in power across all three branches of government, a billion dollars to spend on people and animals (I get to keep 2-3M to shore up our accounts, pay off the mortgage, and whatever I’ve forgotten but the rest of the cash can go into making life sustainable again for folks), to not be exhausted anymore. To be cured of my fibro and CFS. To have all the clutter and dust and dirt cleared out of the house in one fell swoop without having to Pay A Price (physically). A horse and two dogs. Two horses if we’re wishing for the stars. For the kids to stop being obnoxious.
More realistically, I got a short nap, vacuumed under furniture that usually doesn’t get moved but haunts me since I moved it two weeks ago and saw all the yuck under there, spent 3 hours organizing the donations and orders for the Red Shirt village on Pine Ridge, and decluttered a fraction of a corner of the office. Also there was a slice of cake. It worked ok for the reality we do live in.
Year 7, Day 155: I made a simplified (no herbs, no cheese) version of this chicken zucchini stirfry and other than the zucchini getting too soft too fast (note to self, next time, cook them for 30 seconds max), it was quite good. I wonder if I swap out for a veggie that doesn’t soften too much, maybe that might be better. I’ve had a huge hankering for cauliflower lately and that could hold up nicely in this recipe.
I also want to make Mediterranean cauliflower with sumac one of these days. Or is it better with za’atar? I’m not sure! I’ve seen recipes both ways.
Year 7, Day 155: The first two of four new camping lanterns arrived. I’ve charged and labeled them. The next two should arrive later this week. I don’t know how much runtime we get from the small lights but I feel better knowing we have 4 big lanterns with 12 hours each in addition to the 4 smalls. Judicious use of both sets should give us a reasonable light supply for any 2+ day power outages.
I’m pondering on how many Ilona Andrews worlds I’m emotionally invested in that I crave more of: Innkeeper, Kate Daniels (Wilmington), Iron Covenant, Blood Heir, Inheritance. Maggie is good but I’m just not as invested in that world right now. Probably a time thing? It’s new and all the others have had time to sink into my marrow. Although Inheritance is also pretty new and I very much want more of that.
I think we got really lucky with the full ten books for Kate Daniels, I keep wanting that much of everything else but trilogies are more the thing now. Sadly. Ponders brought to you by all the rereading I’ve been doing.
Year 7, Day 157: My throat has been a problem since August but it really spiked a doozy these past few days. It went from sore and hard to swallow to referred ear pain, feels like swallowing knives when I eat or drink, and even breathing hurts. No idea why it escalated so quickly when I’ve been on my maintenance meds without a break but this is the worst.
It’s not been this bad since 3 years ago when I finally got it sort of diagnosed and was prescribed antivirals that helped most of the time but not all the time.
I finally caved and called the doctor. Ultimately ended up spending 5.5 hours between the primary care and specialist to get it scoped and scraped until he got blood from the sore (frickin OW) and blood drawn for labwork but honestly the ENT isn’t sure what to do or think after he went through the whole list of types of stomatitis. That’s the drawback to asking for help, medically, I have to spend the whole damn day or three worth of energy to get maybe some of the right questions asked but more than likely no answers.
We have a plan to refer out of Kaiser if these tests come up with nothing. That’s going to be a whole new complicated mess that I very much don’t want to deal with.
Year 7, Day 146: Welp, we were approaching “better schedule and carpool arrangements” last week. Now we’re redoing everything because JB’s mobility is very limited for the next four weeks. We’re trying something new with dropoffs and pickups. It requires a lot more driving on my part but it also involves a lot more carpooling.
Maybe this change will help me put together a better schedule for post-cast life?
They were walking with a sorta friend a lot of days before and they weren’t enjoying that relationship so much so we can take the opportunity to reconstruct a set up with a lot less time with that person.
Year 7, Day 147: I can’t remember the last time I did anything purely on impulse and I’ve just reminded myself why. I’m not good at it and it’s probably not a muscle I should flex more because it’s annoying and uncomfortable. Going to pick up JB, I suddenly decided that we should get our flu shots today instead of waiting until later in the week. I had an inexplicable brain itch that didn’t like the idea of “later in the week” and since it couldn’t be reasoned with, I wanted it over with.
I decided to borrow a page from Maggie‘s book and preemptively offered the kids a treat: ice cream and fries (we never get fries!) for their cooperation. We went to the clinic and the universe saw me surprising the kids with this sudden decision and raised me the surprise that the COVID vaccine was in, did I want it? Yes I do! Except, I had no antihistamines on me to manage the COVID vaccine effects and we’d be out for a few more hours after the vaccine. So I took my chances with the vaccine and side effects. Then we had no sweaters for when the winds kicked up, for me or SmolAc, or a water bottle because I left the house with the barest bones of supplies. I did have just enough stuff to get by, but not being prepared for all contingencies was annoying. I need to have all the things all the time. But we all got flu vaccinated! Yay!
Year 7, Day 148: I was wondering what the formula is for recovering from burnout. Discord friends suspect that it’s the same as divorce – one month per year of thingie. If true/accurate, that’s not great for me! It’s been 26 years, burning myself to a crisp the whole time. I’ve got 12 months budgeted for, not 26! And there’s no possibility of full decompression since I’m running flat out taking care of the kids’ stuff now.
My therapist thinks I’m already doing some of the healing now by cranking back my working hours dramatically and spending that time and energy on other priorities. I hope that’s accurate. I’m trying!
I have no clue what healing actually looks like but I hope it’s a lot less exhaustion and frustration. Linda’s lengthy mental load recovery post-retirement sounds like it could be what might be in store for me post-job – even if I am actively working on working less all the way to the end, there’s still a mental connection and a responsibility looming for the last weeks.
Today’s not the day, though, because I didn’t get antihistamines into my system fast enough. I was hammered today with post-vax weary.
Year 7, Day 149: We’ve had four power outages this month. Two of them were very short but two were long enough to be an inconvenience. Thankfully not more than that. Our new garage door with the backup battery worked so that’s one really nice thing about having to replace it recently. Before, I had to lift the door manually which is fine if my body is ok but on a bad day? Nothing doing. My new lanterns from Costco, ordered just after the first long power cut, came in time for the second and they were great. Of course SmolAc claimed the big lantern and JB claimed the tiny one.
Now I’m wondering if I should pick up a few more so we have more than the bare minimum to share between the house and cars. And for some redundancy of charged lanterns in case we have a longer shut off. Yes, I think the answer is yes.
We need to solve our water supply and storage problem. We need safe, clean and high volume storage that I can fill, empty, and refill even when my joints aren’t functioning properly. If anyone has already solved this problem, please share!
Year 7, Day 150: I woke up before 5 am, vibrating with unnamed stress, and wondering how much difference it’ll make to officially be out of limbo and out of work. We have what, a month and change left? Two months felt a bit like mental thumbscrews were in. 6 weeks felt more tolerable.
My days are so full right now with things I have to do and kids to care for (mine plus bonus kid on some days). Some days I’m picking up kids for an hour. There’s only 3 of them and it feels like a circus.
I have applied to exactly two jobs to date and have not yet found as many as a third to be interested in. At this moment in time I don’t have time or energy for any other jobs, paying or not.
Year 7, Day 139: We’ve cobbled together a semblance of a routine. I drop off SmolAc, he drops off JB. I wade through my to do list, chores or desk work, until it’s noon and I’ve forgotten to eat lunch but too late now! It’s time to mosey out the door for SmolAc pick up. When we get back, I feed SmolAc a snack and we fill the time one way or another. We head back out two or three hours later to pick up JB, depending on the time they get out and where they’re meeting us. We have two different pickup locations and three different pickup times.
The one constant is how exhausted I am by 3 or 4 pm. Sometimes by 1 pm. I feel like I should still be taking JB to their after school sport like I always did 2 days a week but PiC has taken that over since school started. It’s not even in me to put up a token protest. I’m so tired that half the time, after we get back from picking up JB, I have to put myself to bed. Sometimes it’ll be because I spent the between pickups time cooking. Sometimes it’ll be because I did so many chores in the post dropoff chunk of time. Some days it’s because I was in so much pain the night before, sleep was impossible.
Today it was getting called in as emergency contact auntie to pick up a friend’s kiddo who was sick and we brought them home to keep them safe, fed, and occupied until their parents got home from work. I’m very grateful we have this ability to help out and I’m also very very tired. But I’m so tired every single day.
Except some days if we can make it to the library. On those days, the kids can craft for a few hours and enjoy the library and sitting up doesn’t feel too hard. But that’s more like good luck than anything else.
I can’t suss the amount of energy I’ll be allowed each day, this is not the first nor the last time I’ll wish I had a health meter bar installed like I’m a video game character, because it sure would help when I’m dropping in my tracks and wondering why. I’m pretty sure I used to last later through the day because my butt was firmly parked for 4-6 hours a day, not just 1-3.
Year 7, Day 140: I’m full of sadness and anticipatory dread today. I started the day a bit sad, just generally. Then getting the kids out the door didn’t feel like the relief it usually does. I had to untangle a lot of tangles at work and am taking big deep breaths over the many ways that the parent company is torpedoing our quality. I knew they would be doing that and had accurately predicted how and where they would cut corners. Having it actually happen shouldn’t be any kind of a surprise and yet it sits badly in my gut. We have several more weeks, and I don’t know how I’m going to stand it.
Chatting to a friend today was really sad. Their kid is going through a severe depression and the parents need more adult support in those gaps when neither parent can be home. That’s where I come in. We’re scheduling days and times where I’ll be picking up and minding their kid when they are at work. What a terrible weight they’re carrying right now, my heart breaks for all of them.
Year 7, Day 141: Are the Google docs and sheets apps cursed now? They keep refusing to open important files and telling me to check my internet connection and permissions. Having created the docs, I do darn well have permission! And I can do everything else that requires an Internet connection so what gives?? /grump
Oh and another thing on an entirely different subject. I think I might be a fool. I might have been PEMSing myself ever since school started. And it took a MONTH for it to even occur to me.
I’m trying to ease the tasks on PiC’s plate while he’s the one with a job that extends past this fall so far as we know and it’s really stressing him out. Both the fact that he’s the primary breadwinner for an unknown span of time and because the stress of the work itself is so much worse than before (several rounds of layoffs later).
We flipped from 90/10 him/me on meal planning and prep to 20/80 him/me. My meal prep is much more labor intensive since I’m cooking from scratch and even occasionally remembering to make veggie sides. I’m doing all the after school pickups and the after kinder care, the trash bins (out and back again) and the gardening. It doesn’t sound like a ton but it’s significantly more than I’d been doing. Then, usually late at night, I make myself do as much of a workout as I can so that I can check off the exercises boxes. I’m paying for a trainer, those assignments need to get done!
It’s been weeks of dragging myself through the day until I literally cannot anymore and have to lay down. Then, more dragging. It’s infuriating.
Almost accidentally, I gave myself the past two days in a row off from working out, which I have not done since July and … errrr. I lasted til dinnertime tonight. I was tired but not catastrophically pass out against my will tired like every single day for the past month. Crap. I think I did this to me.
Year 7, Day 142: Testing my theory again yesterday, I did only 1 set per exercise instead of pushing myself to do all 2 or 3 or 4 sets. My PEMs was distinctly lower today. Argh! I have to roll back the exercise. I’ve emailed my trainer.
I was browsing Costco.com and noticed their P&G offer good until Sept 20. We can get a $25 Costco Shop Card for things we bought last week. Score! For a second $100 of spending, we’d get another $35 card. I’m checking other receipts to see if there’s anything that fills that second hundred.
Update: I submitted the first receipt with $130 of P&G items only for them to say there weren’t $100 worth of qualified items. 🙄 I’m going to have to highlight these things for them, aren’t I?
Year 7, Day 143: Welp a decade later, we find ourselves back in the casting room at the local hospital. Back then, it was their nursemaid’s elbow. Today, JB took a bad step and their foot is in a cast for a month. The sports medicine floor is really poorly designed for kids who have these kinds of injuries. I saw at least four of them in similar situations just walking in, but they made us traverse the whole floor about 4 times. Insurance coverage is something to be thankful for. Our visit, three X-rays and a cast would have cost (TBD). Still waiting for the billing to be posted.
We paid $35.
The middle school secretaries have this down pat, so within minutes of our arrival with the doctor’s note they’d already arranged for JB to have extra time to hobble from one class to the next and all the other things they had to arrange for their late arrival, for pickup and drop-off and other bits and bobs for the next month.
Year 7, Day 132: My tiny victory with the oven was followed up by a power outage. I told the oven VERY STERNLY that it had better come back from the power outage fine because we don’t need to be going through taking it apart again! (It did.)
The power outage was useful in that it was pretty short, it was resolved about 6 hours later, so we had the chance to put ourselves through our paces of “what do we do when lights don’t work” without a giant load of stress. It did make me realize that we’re reasonably set for power outages but boy howdy do I not want to have to also go through a power outage, and broken water lines, and broken gas lines and whatever else a bad quake would bring us.
Year 7, Day 133: I am wrestling with my feelings over a job listing. I have some hard lines (that I share with a number of other people) which has made job hunting taste more like despair than usual. No genAI, no travel, do some social good, prioritize good work over profit margins.
I found one that checks a lot of boxes except the travel bit. They emphasize that the travel bit is important. And they want a lot of it.
It checks all the other important to me boxes and that’s unusual. Every other listing so far is all about implementing AI or driving up revenue or some other thing that’s simply not important to me. So this one is unusual. Still, I find myself grumbling “I don’t want it” while crafting my cover letter and resume.
Update: I went through four rounds of editing and called it good. I submitted and put it out of my mind. If they bother to read it or my LinkedIn recs and are interested, we’ll talk. I have a whole lot of other stuff to keep me busy in the meantime.
Year 7, Day 134: Yesterday I woke up to my hands being REALLY weird. The swelling had gone down to nearly normal levels. It hasn’t been down to this point for months. I reveled in it but didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to jinx it. Naturally today we’re back to LEGO person hands so that was short-lived.
This is frustrating. I made myself work out the night before, had a good dream for once, and woke up with my hands in decent shape. I gave myself last night off working out, had horrifically stressful dreams, and woke up with my hands and wrists in awful shape.
Year 7, Day 135:Argh. Middle school Picture Day was last week and I completely forgot that we have to order pictures before the actual day for them to be delivered to the school with no shipping costs. Now I have to figure out how to rectify this miss.
Garden update: the first green bean plant to survive is starting to put out buds. We harvested our first snap peas. I’ve been picking off the tendrils for a while to encourage it to focus on the peas. The acid amendment for the blueberries and blackberries seems to be helping both bushes a bit! The blueberries are putting out a second round of (a few) flowers for the year, the blackberries might be putting out a first set of buds?
I’ve transplanted the second small green bean seedling and the darn roly polies are already at those leaves. I’m also babying another itty bitty seedling, here’s hoping that one will get nice and strong soon.
Our two day heatwave doesn’t seem to have affected the garden badly except the next green bean seedling I was trying to germinate. It seems to have given up.
Year 7, Day 136: One of the One Spirit coordinators contacted me saying that hunger on the reservation is really bad now with no help to be had. I depleted most of our funds supplying one of the families from the Okini list but I’m thinking about how best to help. I asked her if she could locate a single community organizer who would be willing to help share out food supplies across multiple families so we could try to help more folks in one go. She’s working on that while I’m working on gathering funds and compiling a grocery order. I put out the word on Bluesky but my reach and mutuals there is so vastly diminished from our days on Twitter that I don’t expect much from that.
Update: friend shared on Mastodon to go with Bluesky posts and after a few days, it seems to have gotten some traction. I’m working out the details of what they need with the local who is taking on the responsibility of sharing the food with the community.
Year 7, Day 125: We’re still figuring out the rhythms of drop off and pick up. When PiC has an 8 am meeting, he can’t do drop off. Since we have an excessively narrow window for dropping off SmolAc, this gets extra complicated. We managed it this time by having SmolAc go early and get school breakfast. Their grade is escorted to class by teachers when it’s time. It’s not a great solution because SmolAc feels pressured by the very short block of eating time and don’t like it, but they also aren’t allowed to go to breakfast and NOT eat. I understand why but it’s a dilemma when we have multiple kids to get to different campuses. The next morning we have like this, we’ll ask the neighbors to drop JB with their kid. They leave much earlier but that’ll give JB time to hang out with their friend.
Year 7, Day 126: I’m so tickled about our creative reuse store visit.
We found all the notebooks ($2 new on sale) and poly folders ($23 new) for the kids for school. We found the big envelopes (~$12) and page protectors (~$20) I need for mailing things and saving their art. We found useful odds and ends in the free section and wrapping paper and a puzzle in the tubs. We walked out of there for $5! I only have to buy a calculator for JB new on sale now. They had used calculators for $1 but they didn’t meet PiC’s standards.
My body is far less tickled by the outing. Entirely too much walking and socializing for this bag o’ bones. The pain has been quite high this week even if the swelling has stayed under control. I’m hoping that we’re past the hump of this flare.
Year 7, Day 127: I’ve been craving brownies for ages. A slightly fudgy but also kind of cakey (but not too much because that’s dry) brownie chock full of walnuts. After a friend mentioned their kid loves the Ghirardelli brownie mix, it stuck in the card catalog of my cravings section of the brain and I finally grabbed a box recently. Mixing it up was incredibly fast, melting the butter is what took ages, and then it went into the toaster oven for an hour while I took myself off to bed. It was a really good treat for being in the middleish of a multi-day pain and fatigue flareup.
Year 7, Day 128: Alright after N months of NOT looking or finding a repair person, I texted a friend to confess my cowardice over the possibility of delving in and making things worse. We decided that I probably wouldn’t break it more and well, if it does, I needed a repairperson anyway. I took apart the oven, cleaned it because we’re already in here why not, replaced the battery and put it all back together minus that one screw that’s been put into timeout because there’s absolutely no way to put it back in flush and it’s not critical. I’m still not telling PiC where the screw should be though, the perfectionist.
Voila, I fixed it! I have saved myself at least a $100 callout fee and embarrassment over wasting that time on a callout for something so simple.
Year 7, Day 129: PiC is looking into aftercare programs since the most desirable one waitlisted us, again. I’m betting we never get off their waitlist. We never got off their preschool waitlist and had to pay for THAT privilege, too, blech. But he asked for some recs and checked out one of them. He came home bearing printouts and brochure type information and would you believe that for a 5 day program with pickup, they’re charging basically $10k and change per year? Probably that price lands differently when you have two full incomes, we certainly were paying twice that for daycare (for full days with 3 meals though), but with mine soon to end, that doesn’t sit comfortably. I need a happy medium between SmolAc being bored at home with me and paying through the nose for a few hours of care a day.
This school year feels like a more benign version of 2020 where it’s a whole lot harder and people are home a lot more. It’s a lot. It’s also temporary. Kindergarten can’t/won’t last forever. But I don’t love how tired I am every single day.
Year 7, Day 118: The first week of school, which was all of two days last week, trounced me. I was exhausted in body and spirit by the time retrieval of both children was accomplished. Taking to my bed was all I could think of by the time we fed everyone. JB was still fairly overwhelmed by Day 2, SmolAc was fine and jonesing for more. They’re going from a full day to a partial day so it’s a downward adjustment.
I’m a little bit better prepared for this week with my own schedule but have accepted the responsibility of on-call dog care for my friend who is going through family drama and managing an elder’s healthcare due to a massive sudden decline. Very much hoping the scheduled nurse visit for which they need the dogs out of the house happens at a manageable time for me and the kids.
I’m so glad I’ve been holding firm against bringing home a new dog before this period. I’m having enough trouble with the changes/transitions of 2 human dependent, a third might well have broken me.
Year 7, Day 119:Â It is a dark day today, losing Dolly Parton. So few people could measure up to the example she set, much less people in the public eye. She was always so genuine, and she cared enough about people she’d never meet to do all kinds of good for them from the Imagination Library, to Dollywood, to the Moderna vaccine, to the direct aid she did for schools and marching bands, to helping out the folks affected by the fires in Tennessee. That’s probably just scratching the surface of the list of all the good she’s done over the years. What a loss for the world. I hope that everyone whose lives she ever touched is moved to do as she did in whatever way that they can. I’ve always tried to follow her example in my own small ways.
Year 7, Day 120: I’ve been diligently digging out roly polies of all sizes from the potato bag and watering with the cold shower water catch buckets. The potato plants are coming up strong and the one green bean plant that survived the isopod depredations seems hidden among them. I’ve got another green bean seedling sheltering in a tiny pot, waiting for the right time to transplant it. If I transfer it too early, the isopod families will converge on the weak baby and devour it. They’ve wiped out two seedlings and four germinating seeds already and I refuse to sacrifice any more to them.
The blackberry bush came back strong with branches and leaves after being cut down to the ground, but only produced one flower that just withered away. I suppose they’re all primocanes this year. Both that and the blueberry bush seem to be responding a little bit to the acid amendments added to the soil a couple months ago but it’s too early to anticipate fruit, that’s for sure.
The sole sugar snap pea plant that managed to germinate seems pretty happy among the other potato plants, grabbing hold of its neighbors and growing a bit more sideways than vertically. But so far it seems free of the powdery mildew blight, crossing my fingers that it continues to stay healthy. Might I risk germinating another few? Maybe in a week or two. This week I’m full to the brim with responsibilities, and I’m dropping the ball on something if I add more to my plate.
Year 7, Day 121: Human guinea pig time? I’m exploring the possibility that a GLP-1 med might possibly help reduce my inflammation (which is at an all time long term high) and immune system failure (which is also high despite my diligently taking antivirals). It might not be a HIGH chance of success but any hope is better than nothing.
Update: Nope, Kaiser won’t dispense tirzepatide off-label and it’s apparently VERY expensive. I’ve checked Costco Pharmacy and Cost Plus Drugs and they don’t carry it at all. Rats. I’m pondering whether I should continue digging for other pharmacy options.
Year 7, Day 122: Doing my usual clear my public data off the internet dance. Going through and removing my data scraped from public records is tedious but I feel better for having done it. This week’s targets were Radaris and Truthfinder.
One of them lists an address that I have never been at — my brother and dad’s address since their last residence. I don’t know if they associated it just because I’m related to them OR if it’s because my dad used my personal information to apply for housing behind my back. 😒 My credit reports have been locked down for several years to prevent his using them, though, so I hope this is inaccurate data scraping and linking.
Year 7, Day 111: Not to be all about the confirmation bias but I’ve been harboring a not-at-all-secret fear that this layoff will be as bad or worse than the last one. In length at least if not misery. My therapist is being all hope and sunshine about how this represents an opportunity. I’m not denying that it could be that, eventually. I’m not denying that I needed to leave this job and that it would have been unbelievably hard for me to leave to take a real break like I needed to without a layoff. I’m even doing my best to consciously be open to optimism and to making the most of this time so that it’s not all stress and doom. But it’s way too soon to feel hopeful – especially now before a job search begins in earnest. Mostly the open mind and keeping busy, between kids scheduling, chores and new crafts, has been working to keep me out of the dumps this month. And it’s been nice to discover new things while the clock ticks down on the “I still have an income” status.
The worry is still ever-presently lurking in my daily subconsciousness, though, and a recent discussion of how long some folks have been job-hunting (several months to a year and still counting) brought it bubbling back up to the surface. I know we can hang for a year, I’ve been doing the more detailed math, but then what? What’s my Phase 2 plan if this goes longer than a year? 18 months? 24 months??
Sigh. As I half-joked to my coworker, I have until PiC gets laid off, then I REALLY have to get a job. That’s not a time so much as a floating limit. I continue to hope that sometime in Months 6-10, I discover a hidden talent of something I actually want to do, physically CAN do and do well, and is lucrative. Go on universe, show me what good stuff you can come up with.
Year 7, Day 112: Hm. PiC’s employer is changing retirement plan providers from Fidelity to Empower. I’ve never heard of Empower before but they claim to be the second largest retirement plan recordkeeper in the US. Materially, we’ll see a decrease in the annual admin fee from $36 to $19. I don’t see any other differences that matter to us – the plans and funds available to us all remain the same. I won’t expend more brainpower on this until I really have nothing better to do since there’s nothing I can do about it but have an opinion (or not).
A funny coincidence: I have been on a cleaning binge and, last night, found one of the kids’ old sports uniforms that was never worn tucked in a tote bag. That made me sigh. It’s been listed on Poshmark for weeks without any interest, I wonder if I need to do something to bump it a little… then I forgot all about it. Today, I got a notification that there was a counteroffer on that very listed item. Counter? Where was the first offer? I opened the app to see that the little automation they had that sends an offer to anyone who likes an item had been triggered by a like, the buyer immediately countered the lower offer, and then accepted the app’s counter offer. Sold! That’s a pretty easy automation (if I were coding it with my dev, I’d describe it as: if an item is liked, send an offer with Price-$3) and effective too, it seems. I’ve packaged it up and it’s ready to go.
Year 7, Day 113: After four weeks of positively dismal workouts or weeks without working out at all for various reasons, I’m finally doing my workouts this week as written and may actually (knock salt, throw salt, all the things) get through more than half of them for the first time in over a month. It’s been demoralizing how many weeks I’d missed because I couldn’t squeeze it in and it’s clear that stamina has gone walkabout without me. But back on the metaphorical horse I go. I’d be more enthused if it was a real horse.
I’ve mostly got a pharmacy organization system down for travel but Hawaii Planner had me contemplating if it’s the best that it could be. I have a set of meds that I have to take daily – that’s easy and goes in the 7-day am/pm medication organizer. But there’s also a set of meds that I take as needed in the evenings and those are dependent on how I feel so the fixed week organizer doesn’t work for that.
Year 7, Day 114: Ooh I’m mad at Kobo. I have spent hours painstakingly organizing my Seanan McGuire short stories that I’d uploaded manually to the app into the right collections. Today, I opened the app and it ambushed me with an update and migration that I didn’t agree to and in doing so, it changed the author name for all the manually uploaded stories to Unread and deleted all the collection tags. WTAF!! I don’t have the mental energy to fix this right now.
Year 7, Day 115: We’ve tried really hard to get the kids back on an early rising schedule before school starts. It’s painful and largely unsuccessful. They will get up early on the day of, there’s no way to fake the adrenaline from when school actually starts ahead of The Day. Admittedly I’m also dragging from fatigue so much that without the true pressure, the dry runs have been dry fumble stumbles. It’s very irritating because best intentions! But no, says the body.
All that to say, they did finally get up early as needed, just in time. And now we have to be really strict about bedtimes because their bodies need a lot of sleep normally, which is why they tend to sleep in (mostly JB but SmolAc’s also been laying abed a little later than their norm) and if they’re cutting it short at the morning end, we have to make it up at the night end.